Sons Sorrow 2018/19

[FifeSons]

6 hours ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

Good for you. It isn't one result, it has been another collective howler of an effort in the League Cup, with some classic Aitken, fag packet tactics on display. Lets not forget the utterly horrific form in the last few months of last season which were topped off with the backs to the wall playoff performances where we managed to absolutely shitfest our way through to the final minutes before getting what we deserved.

I'm not convinced Aitken has enough goodwill to see him through to October should things go seriously tits up during the first quarter. He's been well backed by the board this summer and I have no doubt they will be keeping a close eye on things, even more so after today's shambles.

I was all for Aitken's resignation at the full-time whistle against Alloa, but he's assembled a vastly superior side to what I expected we'd have this season. The League Cup will have no bearing on our season, and shitebag tactics against Premiership teams are not what we should expect week in/week out in League One.

I absolutely get that when you travel through, and pay good money to watch a 6-0 pumping, you'll be more pissed off than armchair fans like me, who are perhaps able to look at things a bit more objectively. As poor as the  cup campaign has been, it hasn't dampened any of my (realistic) optimism that we'll be top 4 this season.

[Silverton End]

After going to Spartans away I decided to give the rest of our League Cup campaign a miss.

 

[Silverton End]

2 hours ago, optimistic said:

Goal keeper debate anyone?

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

I was all for Aitken's resignation at the full-time whistle against Alloa, but he's assembled a vastly superior side to what I expected we'd have this season. The League Cup will have no bearing on our season, and shitebags tactics against Premiership teams are not what we should expect week in/week out in League One.
I absolutely get that when you travel through, and pay good money to watch a 6-0 pumping, you'll be more pissed off than armchair fans like me, who are perhaps able to look at things a bit more objectively. As poor as the  cup campaign has been, it hasn't dampened any of my (realistic) optimism that we'll be top 4 this season.

FWIW I'm not saying I want Aitken sacked right now, far from it. I'm simply responding to a comment that suggested the reaction to today's result was a knee jerk one based on one performance. It isn't. Aitken has put a fair bit of pressure on himself and the players to hit the ground running and there's absolutely no denying that. Any sort of breathing space he had has well and truly disappeared after today. The form in the final 3rd of last season and the start of this has been absolutely dreadful and he needs to start getting things right very quickly or fans will turn on him.

As I highlighted earlier it's all well and good constructing a good squad on paper but it will be pointless unless he picks the right guys to play alongside each other and gets results. I appreciate it's early doors but the initial signs are far from promising and we can only make judgements based on what we've seen far.

[sonsanorak]

Don’t panic, don’t panic!

Seriously but, I expect top four and hope to be really close to the top, really close. I think we’ve signed players capable of it and believe that we’ll be more attacking in the league than we ve been for a while.

I’m happy to give Stevie till Christmas before reviewing things.

[FifeSons]

8 minutes ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

FWIW I'm not saying I want Aitken sacked right now, far from it. I'm simply responding to a comment that suggested the reaction to today's result was a knee jerk one based on one performance. It isn't. Aitken has put a fair bit of pressure on himself and the players to hit the ground running and there's absolutely no denying that. Any sort of breathing space he had has well and truly disappeared after today. The form in the final 3rd of last season and the start of this has been absolutely dreadful and he needs to start getting things right very quickly or fans will turn on him.

As I highlighted earlier it's all well and good constructing a good squad on paper but it will be pointless unless he picks the right guys to play alongside each other and gets results. I appreciate it's early doors but the initial signs are far from promising and we can only make judgements based on what we've seen far.

I absolutely get that, and didn't take that you did want him sacked. I just wouldn't put too much emphasis on the league cup campaign.

By the way, I actually don't think we'll win next week, given our historically poor start to seasons (as I mentioned on the prediction thread). I won't be panicking if we draw though.

 

 

[pleslie99]

Poor (shocking) result today however, we tend to treat these games as pre season games and today sounds like we did just that. I am still confident that with the squad we have assembled we should be top 4 as a minimum. Having only watched the 1 game so far this season I seen enough against Killie to suggest we have the quality required in league 1. My concerns are:
1. Adam in goal, looked extremely shakey against killie and it sounds like he was poor today
2. Hutton/Carswell. Last season it didn't work, I don't see it working this season. I get the impression from Hutton he thinks he's too good for the level he is playing at, I would've preferred we only signed one of the above for this season.
3. Full backs. We havnt seen ballantyne yet so he may improve things but dyer and Perry look like weak links to me.

[lorenzo71]

12 minutes ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

FWIW I'm not saying I want Aitken sacked right now, far from it. I'm simply responding to a comment that suggested the reaction to today's result was a knee jerk one based on one performance. It isn't. Aitken has put a fair bit of pressure on himself and the players to hit the ground running and there's absolutely no denying that. Any sort of breathing space he had has well and truly disappeared after today. The form in the final 3rd of last season and the start of this has been absolutely dreadful and he needs to start getting things right very quickly or fans will turn on him.

As I highlighted earlier it's all well and good constructing a good squad on paper but it will be pointless unless he picks the right guys to play alongside each other and gets results. I appreciate it's early doors but the initial signs are far from promising and we can only make judgements based on what we've seen far.

Of course its not knee jerk....we have been shite all year .......im not wearing the arguement its too early because its a mentality that is wrong not the players.Also sticking by players who arent good enough is another annoying trait of SA.This has been brewing for some time.He has the squad but the tactics and performances are dire.

[Jumbo Muir]

Don’t panic, don’t panic!

Seriously but, I expect top four and hope to be really close to the top, really close. I think we’ve signed players capable of it and believe that we’ll be more attacking in the league than we ve been for a while.

I’m happy to give Stevie till Christmas before reviewing things.

If things don't go well at the start of the league campaign, then I'd suggest waiting for a managerial change until Christmas would be too late. I expect a tight top 6 and those below starting to be cut adrift just after New Year.

I posted my displeasure earlier and whilst I appreciate it was a cup competition that we had little of chance of qualifying to next round, but why not give the paying punters a game to watch ?

The set up was a gift for St Mirren. It could have been double figures.

It was a dead rubber, what were were trying to defend ? Why were we looking to sit back ? Long balls to Loy, for him to fail to hold it up for a midfield that isn't attacking. Guess what ? Possession is easily lost.
I just can't get my head round it.

Fans were sold short today.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

It's instructive that most of the critical comments are coming from those who were actaully witnesses at Paisley, whilst the more laid -back perspective is coming from those who patently were not.

[microdave]

Of course its not knee jerk....we have been shite all year .......im not wearing the arguement its too early because its a mentality that is wrong not the players.Also sticking by players who arent good enough is another annoying trait of SA.This has been brewing for some time.He has the squad but the tactics and performances are dire.

I don't think having favourite players is exclusive to Stevie Aitken tbf. Most Scotland managers in my life have done that too. I wonder why he thinks Carswell and Hutton can play together, since on here and people I speak to don't think they can. What makes Aitken(and Ian Durrant) think they can? What are they seeing that us mere spectators aren't?

[lorenzo71]

3 minutes ago, microdave said:

I don't think having favourite players is exclusive to Stevie Aitken tbf. Most Scotland managers in my life have done that too. I wonder why he thinks Carswell and Hutton can play together, since on here and people I speak to don't think they can. What makes Aitken(and Ian Durrant) think they can? What are they seeing that us mere spectators aren't?

Aye but they are favourite players who can play not diddies

[microdave]

I'm also worried about the size of the squad. 17 players is not enough for when injuries and suspensions hit us. Perry went off injured today and we had a right back on the bench but brought on Andy Little. I know he can play anywhere but what happens next week if he has to start at right back but has to change position to cover if someone else gets injured. We've got no depth to the squad and that lies at Stevie Aitken's door. Hopefully we have a wee bit of budget left to add a few more.

[microdave]

Aye but they are favourite players who can play not diddies

I think I've missed the successful Scotland teams of the last twenty years.

[FifeSons]

1 hour ago, lorenzo71 said:

Of course its not knee jerk....we have been shite all year .......im not wearing the arguement its too early because its a mentality that is wrong not the players.Also sticking by players who arent good enough is another annoying trait of SA.This has been brewing for some time.He has the squad but the tactics and performances are dire.

All year, yes, but it's a completely new season. As for sticking by players, only four of the starting eleven were with us last season.

[FifeSons]

51 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

It's instructive that most of the critical comments are coming from those who were actaully witnesses at Paisley, whilst the more laid -back perspective is coming from those who patently were not.

Absolutely, when you spend time and money travelling to a game to watch us lose 6-0 (which I have several times) you will always naturally be more raw post-match than those who didn't.

Bottom line is we got pumped by a Premiership team in a game that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.

[Infirmary Street]

3 hours ago, Rovers1992/1993 said:

Before today, we were joint favourites for the title..

Sons in a massive meltdown following a doing from a full time team: rovers turned over by non-leaguers; City lost 7 midweek. That's the two relegated teams plus the other big-ish team all in crisis. Not saying there aren't things to be addressed for all three but ... give yourselves a break and see where you are at the international break. Not seeing anyone else in L1 killing it with great signings. Forfar and airdrie squads look ok but they're both out too.

[Old Scrotum]

A problem with a squad of 17 is that one serious injury means that the other 16 know they are guaranteed a starting place (on pitch or bench) with no competition. Hardly an incentive to go in for that hospital pass.

[Jan Vojáček]

You know what really got me about yesterday? The amount of guys (presumably like the folk we were talking about on this thread the other day) who were complaining that 'nothing's changed over the summer' and 'we'll do well to stay up in League One with this squad'.

We started with seven players who have yet to make their league debut for us (including Forbes given his was a decade ago), yet I couldn't disagree with them. To me though that highlights where the issue is lying. If you can change almost an entire team, yet produce the same performance then the issue is with setup. I just hope that Stevie is brave enough to change things, because if he isn't then he's going to have a seriously impatient home support to deal with.

We've won ten of our 33 games this year (eight in 31 you take out the friendly wins against EK and the Colts or 8 in 30 competitively). Yesterday was the 18th time we haven't scored in a game since the turn of the year. In that time we've scored 24 goals in competitive games.  24 goals in 30 games. I understand what people are saying about us being traditionally slow starters, but I'm afraid that, that simply won't be acceptable this year. Stevie used up the goodwill he'd built up towards the end of 2016/17 last season - and he now needs to convince an awful lot of people (myself included) that he can set a team up to take the game to their opponents.

East Fife should be solid defensively, but (as I'm sure their own fans are saying) look like they'll struggle for goals. If we try and play cagey football against them then that will play right into their hands.

I'm trying not to take anything from the Betfred run. Ultimately we played Spartans with a team of debutants, controlled the game and should've won it in normal time. Which I can deal with. We played like the Harlem Globetrotters for 40 minutes against Queen's Park, and then got progressively deeper and deeper. The first 40 gave me hope. We did pretty well against Killie and were horrendous yesterday. None of those games are going to be like the League though.

We'll be able to tell pretty quickly next week how Stevie will approach League One. And if it involves having the names 'Hutton' and 'Carswell' next to each other on the teamsheet then I'd be confident in saying he won't end the season as Dumbarton manager. Playing with six defensively minded outfield players as the (joint?) League favourites will not end well.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

You know what really got me about yesterday? The amount of guys (presumably like the folk we were talking about on this thread the other day) who were complaining that 'nothing's changed over the summer' and 'we'll do well to stay up in League One with this squad'.
We started with seven players who have yet to make their league debut for us (including Forbes given his was a decade ago), yet I couldn't disagree with them. To me though that highlights where the issue is lying. If you can change almost an entire team, yet produce the same performance then the issue is with setup. I just hope that Stevie is brave enough to change things, because if he isn't then he's going to have a seriously impatient home support to deal with.
We've won ten of our 33 games this year (eight in 31 you take out the friendly wins against EK and the Colts or 8 in 30 competitively). Yesterday was the 18th time we haven't scored in a game since the turn of the year. In that time we've scored 24 goals in competitive games.  24 goals in 30 games. I understand what people are saying about us being traditionally slow starters, but I'm afraid that, that simply won't be acceptable this year. Stevie used up the goodwill he'd built up towards the end of 2016/17 last season - and he now needs to convince an awful lot of people (myself included) that he can set a team up to take the game to their opponents.
East Fife should be solid defensively, but (as I'm sure their own fans are saying) look like they'll struggle for goals. If we try and play cagey football against them then that will play right into their hands.
I'm trying not to take anything from the Betfred run. Ultimately we played Spartans with a team of debutants, controlled the game and should've won it in normal time. Which I can deal with. We played like the Harlem Globetrotters for 40 minutes against Queen's Park, and then got progressively deeper and deeper. The first 40 gave me hope. We did pretty well against Killie and were horrendous yesterday. None of those games are going to be like the League though.
We'll be able to tell pretty quickly next week how Stevie will approach League One. And if it involves having the names 'Hutton' and 'Carswell' next to each other on the teamsheet then I'd be confident in saying he won't end the season as Dumbarton manager. Playing with six defensively minded outfield players as the (joint?) League favourites will not end well.

This. The die was cast from the kick-off when we assumed the now ritual pose of inviting the opposition onto us, only yesterday Saints effectively killed the game in the first minute unlike Killie the previous week.

I've said my piece on the midfield and I think we are all entitled to seeing something different at Methil when the serious stuff starts.